MUTE (2017) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

mute (2018) movie

Genre             |  Science Fiction

Classification   |   MA 15+

Running time   |   126 minutes

Released         |   23 February 2017

cast

Alexander Skarsgård ... Leo
Seyneb Saleh ... Naadirah
Robert Sheehan ... Luba
Paul Rudd ... Cactus Bill
Daniel Fathers ... Sgt. Kloskowski
Noel Clarke ... Stu
​Justin Theroux ... Duck

director

Duncan Jones

writer

​Michael Robert Johnson ... (screenplay by) &
Duncan Jones ... (screenplay by)
 
Duncan Jones ... (story by)

cinematographer

​Gary Shaw

music

​Clint Mansell

film editor

Barrett Heathcote ... (edited by)
Laura Jennings ... (edited by)

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box office result

Worldwide             Not applicable

Australia                 ​​Not Applicable

North America       Not appicable

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the best dialogue

MUTE (2018) MOVIE IMAGES

Images

Posters

Images

Posters

MUTE (2018) STORY SYNOPSIS

​In a Berlin of the future, a mute bartender's search for his missing lady-love takes him deeper and deeper into the city's criminal underbelly.

MUTE (2018) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 25 February 2018
​Pop Movee Rating ⭐

It’s hard to know where to begin without dragging this movie down and smashing it into little pieces…

The sole reason MUTE deserves any recognition is that it would be disrespectful to suggest those involved in its production deliberately set out to make such a terrible movie.

It’s also naive to think that on an undertaking as ambitious as a feature film, things don’t go quite the way they were intended and, unfortunately, the finished version is not what the makers had in mind. 

MUTE is not the first film this has happened to, and, with fair certainty, it won’t be the last.

The question among movie devotees will not necessarily be about the film itself…

The main question will be about the long-term future of Duncan Jones, the primary creative force of MUTE. It seems the filmmaker is going through a “Shyamalan” type of decline, where each new film he makes is a lesser endeavour than than the preceding. Shyamalan hit rock bottom with THE LAST AIRBENDER, but that was half a dozen movies into his career. MUTE is only the fourth movie Jones has made, but it’s going to do some damage to his future directing prospects. Coming off the poorly received 2016 film WARCRAFT: THE BEGINNING, Jones needed his next film to be, at minimum, reviewed with enthusiasm. MUTE is not a film that will qualify.

Let’s try the premise…

In future Berlin, a mute Amish man searches the city’s seedy underworld culture to discover the whereabouts of his waitress girlfriend, who has gone missing after making love to him for the first time.

It’s been reported that MUTE was a feature film that Jones wanted to make as far back as 15 years ago. MOON actor Sam Rockwell said that Jones showed it to him before making MOON but knew it would cost too much to make. Instead, Jones and Rockwell went on to make the aforementioned film together, garnering critical acclaim upon its debut. 

Jones followed MOON with Jake Gyllenhaal in SOURCE CODE.  The 2011 movie proved to be a major commercial hit. SOURCE CODE was similar to MOON, in as much as it stayed focussed upon one character for the majority of its running time. Having Gyllenhaal playing that character was a huge benefit and, arguably, if it had been a lesser performer, SOURCE CODE may not have been able to sustain the intensity of its time-bending premise and not been as highly regarded.

Instead of returning to the style of film that has brought both critical and commercial success, Jones seems to have become caught in a space where he can’t decide whether he should approach his material with an independent mentality or as if he were directing for a major studio. 

The biggest problem with MUTE is that leading man Alexander Skarsgard has nothing to say. This is an example of Jones approaching MUTE as it was an experimental, independent undertaking. For the majority of the film’s 126 minutes, Skarsgard’s character is motivated by anger and he communicates almost entirely through physical intimidation. That’s not to suggest he’s a bad guy. Much like Clint Eastwood’s Spaghetti Western anti-hero from all those years ago, Skarsgard’s Leo is like the “man with no name” and is referred to by most other characters throughout the story as “the crazy barman”. (Retrospectively, it may been better to have called the film “The Crazy Barman” or maybe even “Roadhouse with No Talking”!)

Another big problem is the film’s setting; near future Berlin. The science fiction mise en scene proves to be quite distracting to the film’s plot. At the centre of MUTE is a detective story. Leo is searching for Naadirah, the woman he loves. The time frame and setting is almost irrelevant. The story could have played in a more contemporary setting and it would have made no difference. In attempting to fulfil the brief of a “Blade Runner” inspired production design, time and again, the story becomes distracted by the “window dressing”. While it may be intriguing to some to see a Sexbot with studded penis, to most it will seem both silly and superfluous.This is where Jones trips himself up with his effort to deliver a film that has “big Studio money” production values. The focus of this effort seems to be in all the wrong places on all the wrong things.

Performance is also a challenge. All manner of strange makes its way across the screen. From Skarsgard’s Leo to Paul Rudd’s cigar-chomping, mean-tempered Cactus Bill, MUTE’s ensemble have a hard time drawing the right balance of emotion from their characters. Seyneb Salah’s Naadirah dominates the first twenty minutes but, then, disappears for the majority of the film’s story. Justin Theroux, as Duck, delivers the most layered performance as the film’s most questionable character, but most of his scenes are played opposite Rudd and the two never seem to be on the same page as far as intensity is concerned. Versatile character actor Robert Sheehan also delivers a solid supporting turn, as Naadirah’s morally ambiguous work colleague Luba. Despite Theroux and Sheehan lifting the overall quality, the film fails to find its way above the challenges presented by Skarsgard’s Leo. He’s a competent actor, but he relies far too heavily on his physical presence to get his point across. His “angry” default setting is a challenge because it plays against the heroism Leo must engender from the viewer for his character arc to be both sympathetic and revelatory.

Leo’s anger also seems to be at odds with his Amish religion. The story makes an effort to point out that the orthodox Amish of the future have returned to their German homeland in an attempt to reinvigorate the faith in its country of origin. For a pilgrim, he’s sure got an interesting way of spreading the “Good Word”!

MUTE is certainly a difficult film to decode. 

The film doesn’t offer a great deal in the way of “enjoyment”, due to the nature of the story material and choice of setting. There’s no real sense of narrative flow. Skarsgard’s Leo develops a sense of purpose in his search for Naadirah, while Paul Rudd’s Bill is trying to find a way back to the United States. These two plot points eventually converge, but the denouement is both lacklustre and contrived.

So, circling back to the beginning…

What is Duncan Jones going to do next?

Jones needs a successful movie. It doesn’t need to be a hit movie; it just needs to be good and recognised as such. MOON and SOURCE CODE are great films. WARCRAFT is not great, but it’s way better than MUTE. Jones needs to arrest the decline. Perhaps a non-genre project could help to focus his attention away from visual effects, fancy props and fantastique settings. Four feature films is more than a lot of Directors ever get a chance at, so Jones needs to make his next one count.

MUTE, however, does raise another important point...

Are Netflix viewers happy to keep subscribing to the service if the “Original” feature films are going to be of such a low standard?

Netflix is, potentially, the greatest disruptive force ever to emerge in the filmed entertainment industry. It has picked the Studio’s movie catalogues dry at the same time as creating a production capability that now ranks it as one of the industry’s top content providers. The challenge for Netflix is to deliver up compelling content, not just content for the sake of content. 

MUTE is content for the sake of content. 

“Sometimes, it’s better to say nothing at all than say something about nothing”...

MUTE MOVIE (2018) USEFUL LINKS

​Mute (2018) - IMDb
Mute (2018 film) - Wikipedia
​Mute (2018) - Rotten Tomatoes

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